MySims Hands-on

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Animal Crossing EA-style.

By Bozon

EA has always been a company that, at least on the surface, is focused primarily on sports franchises. Over the years, though, Electronic Arts has moved into nearly every category of gaming, including everything from racing to FPS games, and even casual efforts for the "un-gamer" crowd. The Sims has moved from being a one-hit wonder to actually requiring its own faction of the EA brand, as game after game is released with a different spin depending on the users and platform it heads to. With MySims we're seeing it again, and while the latest DS Sims effort will certainly be familiar to gamers, just exactly why it's familiar may be a surprise. EA had the latest build at its event today, so we figured we'd also give you an update to Nintendo's latest Sim property.

On Wii, MySims is all about building up a town, customizing the furniture, buildings, and overall layout of the once-shoddy city until it prospers and blooms to full potential. While MySims has the same look and basic premise on DS the core gameplay sheds the "build it yourself" feel of the Wii game, and instead heads down the Animal Crossing path. You create your Sim, complete with different clothes, hairstyles, eyes, skin color, and sex, and begin to guide a young town to national stardom.

Within the first moments of the game you'll notice it's amazingly similar to Animal Crossing, but if you're going to mimic a design in the first place you might as well start with a solid template and EA has done just that. You'll name your player, customize yourself, and dive into a town that starts with only a handful of patrons. You've got your mayor, a general store owner, a flower shop, and a city police officer. Sound familiar? It should.

In fact nearly every facet of MySims seems inspired at least a little bit by Animal Crossing. The interior layouts work off the same blocky, semi-chibi look, camera angles are nearly identical, all the same customization options are there (as the town's tailor even begs for newcomers to create custom designs for new clothes), and the same "go anywhere, do anything" feel. MySims puts more direct pressure on you to make the town prosper though, as you report directly to the mayor who in turn assigns you optional objectives that directly impact the town. Every time you do good deeds you fill up your star meter at the top of the screen, and once filled you earn one of five stars for the town. Each star is essentially a level-up for the entire world, changing the town and its surrounding areas once you wake up the following morning. New members show up, stores open, and mini-games become available as you make a distinct effort towards prospering the town.

As a quick note on the game's overall feel though, it feels slightly less comfortable playing this than something like Animal Crossing, as the character's general movement is just a bit too sluggish for our liking. You can control movements with either the d-pad or stylus, but even in stylus mode the character doesn't run to a specific spot touched, but just in the direction of your stylus itself, acting less like a point-and-click game and more like a touch-based analog stick. It works, but with the character constantly flipping from walk/run state you won't get around town as fast as you'd think. It may just be a matter of preference, but we'd actually prefer not having a walk at all; at least in stylus mode.

Despite some minor control issues you may or may not agree with, there's certainly one aspect of gameplay that MySims has improved upon over the AC design, and that's the lack of "fetch quest" feel the game gives off. In AC you'd run from person to person in order to deliver items or accomplish goals, only to arrive at their house and see that they've stepped out (which basically means they're basically anywhere in the game aside from their house). In MySims not only do you do less person-to-person busy work, but you can also constantly see where each member of the game is on your top-screen mini-map, so there's no searching needed.

This also works well with the in-game clock, which works like Harvest Moon, as you can see which shops are open simply by checking to see if the workers are in the buildings, rather than walking all the way over only to find the place closed hours ago. It's fast, intuitive, and certainly a welcomed part of the on-the-go Sim world. Team these minor changes with all the expected elements of a Sim game such as house customization and social interaction and you've got a game that won't necessarily pull AC fans out of Nook's shop, but definitely makes for a solid game for the younger crowd.

Where the game still doesn't prove itself to us, however, is in the mini-game aspects, which are a focal point of the town experience. Players can jump into a game of racquetball, go sky diving, make leis for other town members (and cash), go fishing, and the like, but each of the mini-games is still pretty dang basic. Racquetball is single player only, and might as well be a game of pong, while the somewhat promising lei-making challenge feels more like an elongated Mario Party mini. I'm sure the time-wasters have enough to keep younger gamers interested for at least a few rounds, but they lack the overall polish of the rest of the game.

We've yet to see everything MySims has to offer, but from our brief playthrough we can already see definite promise in the game's AC-like appeal, as long as you don't put too much weight in the mini-game challenges. We'll have more on MySims DS and Wii as we near its September 18 release, so be sure to keep checking IGN for the latest news, media, and game coverage.